To effectively manage today's complex and constantly changing networks, up-to-date network device discovery and assessment are needed. Currently, discovery engines are used to periodically scan through the networks to detect and gather device intelligence. FIG. 1 illustrates such an example. Various discovery sensors and agents are placed throughout a managed network for such purposes. The discovered device information is typically stored by a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and used by the CMDB or other network components to build network topology, diagnose device misconfiguration, policy violation, inefficiencies and security gaps, and enforce endpoint security policies, etc. However, as the network becomes large or CMDB are deployed in large networks, it can take several hours or days to complete a single scan of the network. This may allow a device to go undetected for hours or days if it happens to connect onto the network between two consecutive discovery scans, potentially pose security risks and management difficulties. As such, an improved method to discover, assess and/or profile network devices is needed.